I didn’t want to invest too many words in a mere wallpaper app, but I did want to bring your attention to Merek Davis’ new app Vellum (his other app being the very excellent photo editor, Mextures). Vellum is a). totally free, b). includes hundreds of beautiful wallpapers, c). is a lovely app in its own right that includes a nice little tool to add a user-defined amount of blur to any wallpaper as well as a very useful preview option too see what a particular wallpaper might look like on a (generic) home screen. Vellum’s wallpapers are grouped into assorted and well curated genres, are nicely varied in style, and again — are all quite beautiful. A couple of caveats:

Vellum is ad supported, so you’ll have to live with a banner ad at the bottom of the app.

Vellum likes to occasionally remind you with a small popup that some of the wallpapers have been enhanced with the aforementioned Mextures app.

Vellum Wallpaper Example | Blur Tool | Preview Tool

Outside that, there’s not a lot to grumble about here. Mind you that I’m not personally a huge 3rd party wallpaper type of person, but if you are — check out Vellum, you literally have nothing to lose.

Vellum requires iOS 9.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Long the everynerd’s favorite weather app, Weather Line has finally managed to procure itself an update after nearly a year and a half of triggering vague memories and collecting dust in the App Store. Given the ample time between updates, one might have expected sweeping changes to the app — a visual overhaul perhaps, a sweet dark theme (so hot right now), an icon change, radar, or even just an Apple Watch or iPad app. No, none of that here, instead version 1.8 largely just brings Weather Line inline with iOS 10 — there’s a new widget, 3D Touch Quick Actions, and visual parity thanks to the San Francisco font, as well as various under the hood improvements that optimize the app’s performance and function.

The Weather Line App

Maybe it’s just me though having trouble squaring the time between updates and the scope of this update, because for Weather Line fans it seems that mere proof of life is enough to warrant excitement. To be fair, Weather Line has always been a fairly straightforward app — its calling card is clarity in presentation — and that remains true here, it’s really one of the best weather apps for instantly getting a grasp on your daily forecast, bells and whistles be damned, and version 1.8’s new lock screen widget just makes getting that forecast all the more easier.

Still, even accepting that this isn’t Weather Line 2.0 and allowing that a new widget and being optimized for iOS 10 are — well, worthy of a slow clap I suppose, I’m still not all that keen to recommend Weather Line. This is because Weather Line, deft as it is at displaying weather data, still gets that data via the Dark Sky API which I don’t find to be as accurate for forecasts or realtime data as Weather Underground. I can't say for sure whether this is because WU simply has a superior forecast model or because it is in part informed by an enormous network of personal weather stations (one of them almost assuredly closer to you than any NOAA station), but for me at least — WU has an edge on Dark Sky, though admittedly, YMMV.

Weather Line's widget vs Weather Underground's

Even if we put the APIs of these two apps aside, the Weather Underground app is vastly more informative than Weather Line, and yes I know what you’re thinking — maybe too informative? If that’s your mindset consider the screen shot above comparing the two apps’ lock screen widgets, WU’s is just as informative and to my eyes, just as glanceable. Don’t need all of WU’s bits and bobs? Bury it in a folder and stick with the widget — digestible, and accurate data, and more when you need it, that seems like a win/win/win to me.

Now I didn’t mean to rain on Weather Line’s parade here, it’s a nice app, now a bit nicer, and I’m glad to see its developer breathe new relevance into an old favorite. In the end though, Weather Line is just one of hundreds of Dark Sky skins in the App Store, and like the rest of them — only really as good as the API powering it.

Weather Line requires iOS 10.0 or later and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Sleep tracking — I’m still not sure what’s actually in it for me, but it sure seems to me that what I can actually learn from monitoring my sleep might be even less useful than that analytical geometry class way back in high school. Still, personal data like this is fascinating — especially when it can be done with as little friction as possible.

The Sleep Cycle App

One app that I can vouch for is Sleep Cycle (by Northcube), which functions primarily as an alarm clock that eases you into consciousness by “analyzing” your sleep, triggering gently and gradually at your lightest sleep state. It works brilliantly at this and as it happens, at its secondary function as a sleep tracker, offering you a daily analysis of the quality of your sleep which the app then uses to provide a number of fun statistics like sleep quality affected by location, the moon, air pressure, activity level, and more. Sleep Cycle is easy to use (put it under your pillow or on the nightstand next to you) and seems to be largely accurate — I’m a definite fan.

The AutoSleep App

App number two in this field, a new one to me, is AutoSleep (by Tantsissa). Spied at MacStories, my interest was piqued by the app’s elevator pitch: “automatically track your sleep from your Apple Watch.” To good to be true? Well actually, no — AutoSleep seems to work as advertised, requiring no app on the watch, and no input from the user. Just leave your watch on when you go to bed, wake up, and enjoy the data. AutoSleep, unfortunately, doesn’t provide the sort of analysis that Sleep Cycle does, but as I said above, I’ve no idea what good this data actually does me anyway. Still, the information the app does offer is presented nicely enough, and at $1.99 it’s nearly impossible to beat AutoSleep’s friction-free experience — as with Sleep Cycle, I am once again, a definite fan.

Form. Function. Aesthetics. Developer loyalties. Your budget. All of these considerations and more complicate the task of choosing, using, and ideally loving today's crop of iOS podcast players. Apple's Podcasts app, Overcast, Castro, and Pocket Casts — each of them recently updated (yes, we're counting iOS 10 Beta's Podcast app as an update) — all of them quality applications, and all are perfectly suitable for managing your podcasts, and yet each seems to be distinctly tailored (based on anecdotal observations of respective fans) to a certain type of user. This makes offering broad sweeping recommendations for one over another a fool's errand, but it does mean users are blessed with a buyer's market when it comes to really good podcast players, and I haven't even mentioned all of the compelling options.

That said, of the ones mentioned above, the one that threads the needle best seems to be the new Pocket Casts 6. Now re-written in Swift and sporting an elegantly refined interface, the new Pocket Casts looks and feels better than ever and boasts any number of improvements: MP3 chapter support, an improved "Up Next" queuing system, a dark theme, PIP and split screen support on the iPad, stats, and a lot more. Version 6 is so good, covers so many bases, and straddles the competition so nicely that I'm almost tempted to make the very broad sweeping recommendation that I just warned against moments ago — but first a closer look.

Filters, Podcasts, Discover Sections

Aesthetically Pocket Casts 6 looks great. Where Overcast is utilitarian, and Castro always strikes me as sexy, Pocket Casts comes off as...let's say...pretty — with its Skittles colored iconography, newly saturated app icon, plum colored mini player and dark theme, and generous use of podcast art. It is for sure, a lovely looking app, but the pretty UI will initially come off as more convoluted than its competitors, greeting you as it does with its launch page listicle of pre-populated filters (see left screenshot in the image above) that break down your podcast episodes amongst "New," "Unplayed," "Downloaded," and "Video" categories (along with access to all of your subscribed podcasts and the app's discover section). In short order the usefulness of such filters are easy enough to recognize, and to be clear — these included options can be edited, right down to their icon, color, and function, or deleted, or added to as the user sees fit. Still, when compared to Overcast's more earnest "here's your shit" approach, the cognitive load of Pocket Casts 6's introduction feels a wee bit higher.

3D Touch And Ellipsis Menus

Tap inside one of your filters and you can of course hit an episode's play icon to get things started, but Pocket Casts 6 has also smartly tucked a lot of additional options into the UI here, all just a tap or 3D Touch away:

Tap an episode for a look at show notes and options for favoriting, or adding the episode to "Up Next", plus share, delete, and mark as played options.

3D Touch an episode and Pocket Casts 6 offers choices to stream, queue the episode ("Up Next"), or "Play All From Here."

Finally an ellipsis menu at the top of every filtered list allows you to play all, download all, mark all as played, plus the ability to edit or delete the filter.

Typed out it seems like there's a lot going on here, and there is — but thanks to some nice design work, the visual friction here is nicely minimized.

Rearranging "Up Next" Episodes From The Mini-Player

You'll have noticed a couple of mentions above to Pocket Casts' "Up Next" queueing system — think of it as Pocket Casts' approach to a running playlist, and version 6.0 tries its best to make it as easy as possible to continually add content to that queue. It also has added a nifty way of managing that content in the form of the app's mini-player anchored in the app's footer. Just swipe left on the mini-player to reveal your queue — then press and hold an episode's art icon to rearrange it to your liking. If you're inside one of your filters you'll note that swiping right on the mini-player allows you to easily add or remove episodes to your queue in addition to rearranging the episodes. Again, a lot going on here — hidden out of sight, but available with a thumb swipe when you need it.

"Now Playing" Options

So, smart looks, smart filters, and smart queueing, but ever since Overcast launched some two years ago, the only thing podcast listeners really seem to care about is, "can you even smart speed bro?" Smart Speed of course being Marco Arment's very useful setting in Overcast to shorten the silences between all the countless gaps and pauses that are the inevitable consequence of speaking on a microphone, gathering your thoughts, interacting with cohosts and audio technology, or just good old fashioned Skype delays. The beauty of Smart Speed is that it's free — that is, the time savings netted from using Smart Speed come minus the penalty of distortion that one would get by simply speeding up the audio, and as any Overcast user who has checked their stats in that app's settings can tell you: the savings can really add up. Long story short — yes, Pocket Casts can Smart Speed, here more matter-of-factly branded "Trim Silence." Enabled, it seems to work just as well as Smart Speed, and before you ask — yes Voice Boost is here too (or in Pocket Casts-speak "Volume Boost") as are easily changed incremental adjustments to playback speed (I am personally quite partial to 1.1x playback myself).

Conclusion

If it isn't clear by now, Pocket Casts 6.0 is a big update that checks off nearly every feature a person could want in a modern podcast player — so many in fact, that I haven't begun to cover all of them adequately, if at all (like sync, a web app, and that new Discover section that's quite nice — though critically lacks the ability to listen to single episodes minus a subscription). Some of the improvements are there of course to reach parity with the competition, but most seem intended to genuinely improve the user experience of an already very good podcast player.

That said ( insert record skip sound here ) there are many users, we'll call them Overcast users, who aren't going to go in for all of Pocket Casts' knobs and dials — and I totally get that. There is an obvious appeal in Overcast's straightforward approach and simple feature set: playlists and smart speed and voice boost and done. It sounds terrible to say, but if you love Overcast, there's really not much need in investigating Pocket Casts 6 — enjoy your status quo. If you're one however that suffers with restless leg syndrome, in where your legs are instead podcast player apps, or you have "feelings" about aesthetics, or you're using one of the apps not mentioned in the intro, and assuming you aren't already using Pocket Casts — try Pocket Casts 6. Version 6 is a huge update, long in the making, it should cover all your bases, it looks amazing, it's on iPhone and iPad (and Android may God bless your soul), and it lays the ground work for faster incremental updates in the future (a recent version 6.1 update for example added Car Play support). The bottom line: if I had to make a broad sweeping recommendation for a podcast player — it would, as thing stand now between the competing clients, most certainly be Pocket Casts 6 — even if in the end — it wasn't ultimately for me. More on that, soon.

Pocket Casts 6 requires iOS 9.0 or later and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Pocket Casts is a universal app and works with Car Play, but it does not ship with an Apple Watch app at the time of this review.

Last week, The Verge's Walt Mossberg began shouting at the App Store to get off his lawn:

The problem is that lots of software has a short shelf life, that novelties are just that. Unless an app like Instagram, Spotify, Google Maps, or an addictive, evolving game that attracts your attention daily, it’s likely to end up on life support. It could remain on your phone, gradually migrating to a place where it’s rarely seen or is always swiped past, until it’s finally deleted.

Today, eight years later, I could never write this column I co-authored in 2008, 11 days after the Apple App Store opened. It marveled that the store already offered over 900 apps, that 90 percent were under $10 or even free, and even included shout-outs to "More Cowbell!," "Touch Tarot," and more serious products like Evernote and Truphone, the first VoIP app for iPhone. There are still scores of tarot apps, numerous cowbell apps, and loads of VoIP apps, even though Wi-Fi calling is now built into iOS, and Apple’s own free VoIP app, FaceTime, appeared in 2010.

I just don’t feel that excited any more. Few smartphone veterans do. The App Store was new and brilliant then. It’s really, really old and dull now.